Das Demokratiemodell des B-VG und die politische Realität der Zweiten Republik

Abstract

The Federal Constitutional Act (B-VG) established a representative parliamentary democracy overwritten to significant degree by constitutional reality in the Second Republic’s party state anchored bargaining democracy. The new predominant type of democracy challenged key provisions made in the B-VG. The B-VG itself had enabled such a turn by limitation to set the “rules of the game” in organizing state authority. Parliamentary democracy came under pressure during the period in which democracy in Austria operated in a power-sharing mode while its legal foundations were not subject to undermining. The nature of this relationship characterized by ambivalence remained largely unaltered during Austria’s transitioning towards a competitive conflict-based version of democracy in recent decades.